BABYLON AND PERSIA

DAREIOS I. : FOREIGN WARS. 4I 5(Dniestr), the PIypanis (Bug), the Borysthenes(Dniepr), the Tana'is (Don), and a few more -vvhichit is not so easy to identify.The Danube he calls" of all the rivers with which we are acquainted themightiest," and admires its volume of water swelledby so many tributaries, each itself a great river.But of the Dniepr (Borythenes). he speaks with theenthusiasm which that most beautiful and bountifulof streams has never ceased to excite in travellers orits own country people :" Next to the Ister," he says, " it is the greatest of them all, andin my judgment it is the most productive river, not merely in Scythia,excepting only the Nile, with which no stream can possibly com¬pare. It has upon its banks the loveliest and most excellent pastur¬ages for cattle ; it contains abundance pf the most delicious fish ; itswater is most pleasant to the taste ; its stream is limpid, while allthe other rivers near it are muddy ; the richest harvests spring upalong its course, and, where the ground is not sown, the heaviestcrops of grass ; while salt forms in great plenty at the mouth with¬out human aid, and large fish are taken iii it of the sort called antaccei(sturgeon), without any prickly bones, and good for pickling."Every word of this applies now, even to that lasttouch about the sturgeon, which is to our day afavorite fish for pickling. He is not less correctwhen he speaks of the " Woodland " which stretchesby the lower course of the Dniepr, where the riverdivides into many arms, and which, though not to becompared in thickness with the forests of a morenorthern tract, presents a refreshing contrast to theabsolute barrenness of the surrounding steppes; orwhen he places the most fertile lands higher up alongthe course of the river, and describes them as beingsettled with a nation which he calls " Husbandmen,"